No true Christian loves war. A Bible
believer takes the premillenial view and realizes that
war is caused by the sinful nature of mankind - James
4:1. He understands that this will all be changed at
Christ's return - Philippians 3:21.

A Bible rejector who has chosen the
postmillenial viewpoint cannot allow himself to believe
that mankind is bad. He must find a way to show that man
is basically good. All men must be brothers in
his eyes. "Brothers," he assumes, will just
naturally work toward peace.

Westcott, a postmillenial socialist, had
this to say concerning the "brotherhood" of man
in regard to instituting "peace on earth."

"Christianity rests upon the
central fact that the Word became flesh. This
fact establishes not only a brotherhood of men,
but also a brotherhood of nations; for history
has shown that nations are an element in the
fulfillment of the Divine counsel, by which
humanity advances toward its appointed end."159

What should these "brothers"
do to help establish "peace on earth?" We can
at once recognize the part which the Christian society is
called upon to take with regard to three great measures
which tend to peace - meditation, arbitration, and
(ultimately) disarmament - and at least silently work for
them.160

"Combine action, in any ways
possible, for the bringing about of a simultaneous
reduction of the armaments."161

Once again the Cambridge professor is
ahead of his time. "Disarmament" has been the
cry of liberal, pro-Communist college students for two
decades. Strange it is that as the "peace"
movement of the 1960's was led by a "minister"
with the exact same philosophy about world peace!

Westcott wanted an "arbitration
board" made up of the "Christian society"
to decide international policy concerning disarmament
quotas. He first envisioned England and the United States
submitting to this idea, assuming then that the rest of
the world would be forced to follow.

"The United States and England
are already bound so closely together by their
common language and common descent, that an
Arbitration Treaty which shall exclude the
thought of war - a civil war - between them seems
to be within measurable distance. When once the
general principle of arbitration has been adopted
by two great nations, it cannot but be that the
example will be followed, and then, at last,
however remote the vision may seem, disarmament
will be a natural consequence of the acceptance
of a rational and legal method of settling
national disputes."162

Westcott even felt that world peace
would be worth an "Ecumenical Movement."

"Other cognate subjects were
touched upon -- the proposed Permanent Treaty of
Arbitration between the United States and Great
Britain, the significance of war as extreme
outcome of that spirit of selfish competition
which follows from the acceptance of a material
standard of well being, the desirability of
seeking cooperation with the movement on the part
of the Roman and Greek Churches -- but it seemed
best to confine immediate action to a single
point on which there was complete
agreement."163

He assumed that "world peace"
was of the utmost importance.

"The proposal to work for the
simultaneous reduction of European armament is
definite, and deals with an urgent peril. Such a
disarmament would secure the lasting and
honourable peace which the leaders of Europe have
shown lately, once and again, that they sincerely
desire. We are all sensible of the difficulties
by which the question of disarmament is beset,
but we cannot admit that they are
insuperable."164

All this was to be done, of course, in
the name of Christ. Westcott felt that he was simply
trying to bring to pass Luke 2:14. He truly considered
himself a man with whom God was "pleased," as
that verse had been mistranslated in the Revised Version.

"The question of international
relations has not hitherto been considered in the
light of the Incarnation, and till this has been
done, I do not see that we can look for the
establishment of that peace which was heralded at
the Nativity."165

So here we have a man who doubted the
miracles which Christ performed.

"I never read an account of a
miracle, but I seem instinctively to feel its
improbability, and discover some what of evidence
in the account of it."166

Even though he doubted Jesus
Christ's miracles, he didn't doubt that a Roman
Catholic priest could perform them, as he explains what
he saw in France at "Our Lady of La Salette"
shrine.

"A written narrative can
convey no notion of the effect of such a recital.
The eager energy of the father, the modest
thankfulness of the daughter, the quick glances
of the spectators from one to the other, the calm
satisfaction of the priest, the comments of look
and nod, combined to form a scene which appeared
hardly to belong to the nineteenth century. An
age of faith was restored before our sight in its
ancient guise. We talked about the cures to a
young layman who had throughout showed us
singular courtesy. When we remarked upon the
peculiar circumstances by which they were
attended, his own comment was: 'Sans croire,
comment l'expliquer?' (translated: 'Without
believing how can it be explained?') And in this
lay the real significance and power of the
place."167

We have a man who could read and exalt a
Jesuit-inspired poet, Keble, but when it came to reading
anything that presented Rome in a negative light, such as
Fox's Book of Martyrs, he said, "I never
read any of Fox's book."168

He was a man who claimed, "I cannot
myself reconcile the spirit of controversy and that of
Christian faith."169

Since controversy was
"un-Christian," he refused to answer John
Burgon's arguments concerning the Local Text of
Alexandria which Westcott helped exalt. He simply said,
"I cannot read Mr. Burgon yet. A glance at one or
two sentences leads me to think that his violence answers
himself."170

It is a sad thing that Westcott's
prejudice closed his mind to Burgon's comments. Burgon
was harsh, but Burgon was correct. Time has since proven
that. It is a dangerous spirit which ignores a man's
FACTS just because of a "holier than thou"
attitude which teaches that "anyone who is right,
must be gentlemanly." Had more people in the late
1800's looked past Burgon's harsh comments and examined
his FACTS, Christianity would be richer today.

We have in Brooke Foss Westcott a man
who believed in communal living; a man who believed that
the second coming of Christ was spiritual, heaven was a
state of mind, prayers for the dead were permissable in
private devotions, and that Christ came to bring peace
through international disarmament. He believed in
purgatory and admiration for Mary, and he thought the
Bible was like any other book. This is the man
who walked into the Revision Committee and sat in
judgment of our Bible. He thought he saw room
for improvement in the Authorized Version and offered a
pro-Roman Greek text with which to correct it. The ironic
thing is that Bible-believing Christian educators and
preachers, who would never agree with his theology, have
for years exalted his opinion of the Greek as nearly
infallible. These facts alone should be reason enough to
condemn Westcott and Hort, their Greek Text and the MSS
which they used to arrive at such a text. But let us look
at their actions concerning the molesting of the pure
words of the King James Bible, in favor of Rome. Saddest
of all, we have in Brooke Foss Westcott a man who neither
believed in salvation by grace nor ever experienced it.
There is no record in his "Life and Letters"
that he ever accepted Christ as his personal Saviour. In
a letter to his then future wife, he stated strongly his
feelings concerning "baptism."

"My dearest Mary - I quite
forget whether we have ever talked upon the
subject alluded to in my last note - Baptismal
Regeneration - but I think we have, for it is one
of the few points on which I have clear views,
and which is, I am sure, more misunderstood and
misrepresented than any other. Do not we see that
God generally employs means. I will not say
exclusively, that He has appointed an outward
Church as the receptacle of His promises, and
outward rites for admission in to it, and thus
for being placed in a relation with Him by which
we may receive His further grace; for till we are
so connected by admission into His outward
Church, we have no right to think that he will
convey to us the benefits of his spiritual
Church, when we have neglected the primary means
which He provides. It does not, of course, follow
that the outward and spiritual churches are
co-extensive, that all who have been placed in
relation with God by Baptism, and so made heirs
of heaven conditionally, will avail themselves of
that relation to fulfill those conditions - and
here lies the ambiguity: because a child is born
again into the Church of God, as he has been born
into the world before, people seem to conclude
that he must discharge all the duties of his new
station, which in temporal matters we know he
does not. By birth he may, if he will, truly live
here; by baptism he may if he will, truly live
forever. I do not say that Baptism is absolutely
necessary, though from the word of the Scripture
I can see no exception, but I do think we have a
right to exclaim against the idea of the
commencement of a spiritual life, conditionally
from Baptism, any more than we have to deny the
commencement of a moral life from birth."171

As has already been established, both
Drs. Westcott and Hort were hostile to the true Greek
text of the King James Bible. Dr. Westcott has been
unconsciously influenced into a pro-Roman Catholic
attitude. It must also be pointed out that earlier Dr.
Hort had been a student of Dr. Westcott's, as Arthur
Westcott points out: "Another of Westcott's private
pupils was F.J.A. Hort."172

The meticulous care with which he taught
his pupils is noted by Dr. Whewell, Master of Trinity at
the time, "The pains he bestows upon his pupils here
(private pupils) is unparalleled, and his teaching is
judicious as well as careful."173

The common desire of these two Cambridge
scholars was to eliminate the authority of the Universal
Greek Text of the King James Bible. Scholars had long
sought to do this, but were baffled by the obvious
evidence testifying that the Universal Text was indeed
the true text of the Bible, and in that, a preservation
of the original autographs. These scholars, subtly
influenced by Rome, knew that their duty was to overthrow
this pure, Protestant, Christ-honoring text and replace
it with the Local Text of Alexandria, Egypt, but the
overwhelming evidence was always weighted in God's favor.
No one, even the Roman Catholic Church, could find a way
to explain why 95% of all extant MSS belonged to the
Universal Text. "Textual criticism" was at a
standstill until this roadblock could be circumvented.

Hort's Fiction

It was the genius of Fenton John Anthony
Hort which rode to the rescue of the forlorn Roman
Catholic text. This man used the same method to overthrow
the authority of the Universal Text that Charles Darwin
used to overthrow the fact of creation. He used a THEORY!

His theory was that the
"originals" agreed with the Local Text, and
that this Local Text was "edited" by the Syrian
church at Antioch in the Fourth Century to become what we
know as the Universal Text, and then forced upon the
people by the church council.

Just as was true for Darwin, common
sense, all available facts, and the nature of God
testified against his theory. Just as Darwin did, he
collected minute scraps of evidence, then twisted and
magnified his evidence, and theorized that he was right.
Just as Darwin did, his theory was manufactured in his
head, and INDEPENDENT of historical facts and evidence.

Just as Darwin, his theory was
overwhelmingly accepted by the overeducated men of his
day who were looking for a way of overthrowing God's
authority. The theory of evolution was music to the ears
of scientists, biologists, and college professors who
resented the thought of creation. The sound of "God
did it; that settles it" just naturally mustered all
of the animosity and rebellion that is resident in the
human flesh (Romans 7:18). When Darwin issued his theory
to the world, the world was happy to believe the lie.

The same thing was true of Christian
scholarship. They had long resented the thought that God
could or would preserve His Word without their help. Like
the lost scientists, they begrudgingly had to acknowledge
that the evidence and facts of history were in favor of
the Authorized Version. The issuing of Hort's theory,
with the backing of Dr. Westcott, was heralded as the
"liberation" of textual criticism. Dr. Alfred
Martin explains the delight of liberals which existed
upon learning of Hort's theory:

"Men who had long denied the
infallibility of the Bible - and there are many
such in the Church of England and in the
independent churches - eagerly acclaimed a theory
which they thought to be in harmony with their
position.

"At precisely the time when
liberalism was carrying the field in the English
churches the theory of Westcott and Hort received
wide acclaim. These are not isolated facts.
Recent contributions of the subject - that is, in
the present century - following mainly the
Westcott-Hort principles have been made largely
by men who deny the inspiration of the
Bible."174

Like Darwin's theory, different
viewpoints using his theory arrived at different
conclusions. This, Dr. Martin records, Hort knew:
"Hort freely admits this and concedes that 'in
dealing with this kind of evidence equally competent as
to the same variations'."175

Of course, the fact of different
conclusions did not hamper Hort's followers. They were
not interested in establishing a new conclusion.
They were interested in abolishing an old one, i.e., that
the King James Bible is the Word and the words of God.

A textual critic is not like a man
driving an automobile to a destination which only he
knows. He is more like a little child standing behind the
wheel who doesn't particularly care where he goes, just
as long as HE is doing the driving. Dr. Martin exposed
this tendency: "Their principle method, an extreme
reliance upon the internal evidence of readings, is
fallacious and dangerous, because it makes the mind of
the critic the arbiter of the text of the Word of
God."176

The feeling of power, to be the judge of
God's Word, coupled with the old nature which exists in
the flesh of all men, even in Christian scholars, becomes
overwhelming to the mind. As Paul stated in Romans 7:18,
"For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh),
dwelleth no good thing; for to will is present with me,
but how to perform that which is good I find not."
Jeremiah concluded in chapter 17, verse 9, "The
heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately
wicked; who can know it?" Even a saved man has bad
flesh. Give this flesh the authority to change God's
Word, and he will soon plant himself on God's throne. As
it has been said "Put a beggar on horseback, and he
will ride off at a gallop."

Scholarly Prejudice

Another similarity between Hort's theory
and Darwin's theory is that it is still held in high
esteem long after it has been disproven.
Darwin's theory has long ago suffered irreparable damage
by historical evidence, the Word of God, and of course
common sense. Yet, scientists have doggedly upheld it as
reliable. This is not done because they feel that
Darwin's theory will ever lead them to the truth, but
because Darwin's theory leads them away from the
authority they so detest, the Bible.

Hort's theory has been just as
ill-handled by the truth, as Dr. Kurt Aland points out:

"We still live in the world of
Westcott and Hort with our conception of
different recensions and text-types, although
this conception has lost its raison de'etre, or,
it needs at least to be newly and convincingly
demonstrated. For the increase of the documentary
evidence and the entirely new areas of research
which were opened to us on the discovery of the
papyri, mean the end of Westcott and Hort's
conception."177

Dr. Jacob Geerlings, who has extensively
studied the manuscript evidence of the New Testament,
states concerning the Universal Text:

"Its origins as well as those
of other so-called text-types probably go back to
the autographs. It is now abundantly clear that
the Eastern Church never officially adopted or
recognized a received or authorized text and only
by a long process of slow evolution did the Greek
text of the New Testament undergo the various
changes that we can dimly see in the few extant
uncial codices identified with the Byzantine
(i.e. Majority) Text."178

Dr. David Otis Fuller concludes,
"Thus the view popularized by Westcott and Hort
before the turn-of- the-century, that the Majority Text
issued from an authorative ecclesiastical revision of the
Greek text, is widely abandoned as no longer
tenable."

As previously quoted, Dr. Martin has
stated, "The trend of scholars in more recent years
has been away from the original Westcott-Hort
position."179

In spite of new evidence, historical
facts, and God's continued blessing of the Authorized
Version, Christian scholars still exalt the theory as
though it were the truth. This is not done because they
feel that Hort's theory will eventually lead them to the
true Word of God. Any honest, "Christian"
scholar today who upholds Hort's outmoded theory will be
glad to tell you that there is no perfect translation of
"the Bible" in English today. They will
admonish each new translation as "a step in the
right direction," but even the newest translation is
not without errors. This attitude is due to the fact that
man's human nature resents the idea that God could
preserve His words without the help of "good, godly
Christians," and from the natural resistance of men
to be in subjection to God. The supporters of Westcott
and Hort possess a loyalty which borders on cultic, as
Dr. Martin again has faithfully pointed out:

"The theory was hailed by many
when it came forth as practically final,
certainly definitive. It has been considered by
some the acme in textual criticism of the New
Testament. Some of the followers of Westcott and
Hort have been almost unreasoning in their
devotion to the theory; and many people, even
today, who have no idea what the Westcott-Hort
theory is, or at best only a vague notion, accept
the labors of those two scholars without
question. During the past seventy years it has
often been considered textual heresy to deviate
from their position or to intimate that, sincere
as they undoubtedly were, they may have been
mistaken."180

This cultic bent was even observed by
Hort's friend, Professor Armitage Robinson, in 1891 who
stated that a "kind of cult" had sprung up
around the venerated old scholar.181

To criticize either Dr. Westcott or Dr.
Hort is almost sacrilegious in their eyes. We can almost
hear Dr. Westcott's own words, "I cannot myself
reconcile the spirit of controversy and that of Christian
faith." This he used as a defense against the
"fanatics" who think that the Bible is perfect.
Once accepted, pride makes the decaying process almost
irreversible. As any parent knows who has questioned
their guilty son or daughter, being caught
"red-handed" is not nearly as difficult for the
child to take as is admitting that they have been
wrong.

Freedom Then Slavery

Just prior to the translation of the
King James Bible, England had broken free of the yoke of
Rome. Shortly after the Authorized Version was published,
England once again started down the road back to Rome.
For a brief "parenthesis" in English history,
England was free of Roman influence just long enough to
translate and propagate a perfect Bible.

As we have seen, by the latter half of
the Nineteenth Century, England had again, bit-by-bit,
fallen to Roman influence. The Romaninzing effects of the
Oxford Movement, the corrupt tracts of Newman, Pusey, and
other pro-Romanists, the decisions by the Privy Council
in favor of the anti-scriptural position of the
"Essays and Reviews" had wrought their desired
effect. In 1845, Newman made a formal break with the
Church of England to join the Roman Catholic Church. His
decision influenced 150 Church of England clergymen to do
the same. In 1850, the aggressive Roman Catholic Cardinal
Wiseman who had done so much to lead Newman to Rome, and
had directed the Oxford Movement via his paper,
"Dublin Review," had been commissioned by the
Pope to formally re-establish the Roman Catholic Church
on the shores of England.

England had come from the
Bible-honoring, Rome-rejecting position of the
Reformation, to the ritualistic, pro-Roman attitude which
mistrusts and condemns the Bible.

England was ripe for revision!

The Trap is Set

In 1870, the Convention of the Church of
England commissioned a revision of the Authorized
Version. A gleam of hope shone in the eye of every Roman
Catholic in England and the Continent. An eager
anticipation filled every Jesuit-inspired, Protestant
scholar in England. Although it was meant to correct a
few supposed "errors" in the Authorized
Version, the textual critics of the day assured
themselves that they would never again have to submit to
the divine authority of the Universal Text.

In November of 1870, Westcott testified
of just such a spirit in a letter to Dr. Benson, "In
a few minutes I go with Lightfoot to Westminster. More
will come of these meetings, I think, than simply a
revised version."182

The Convocation had instructed the
Revision Committee NOT to deal with the underlying Greek
text of the Authorized Version. They were instructed to
do as follows: (1) to introduce as few alterations as
possible into the text of the King James Bible, and (2)
to limit ... the expression of any alterations to the
language of the Authorized Version.183

Westcott and Hort had other plans. They
had edited the corrupt Vatican and Sinaitic manuscripts
of the Local Text of Alexandria and produced their own
Greek text. Wisely they had never published it. Thus its
existence was unknown to the world, and Westcott and Hort
did not have to worry about the investigative eyes of
their contemporary scholars, such as Dean John Burgon.
Had it been published earlier, it assuredly would have
been exposed as corrupt and unfit for translation into
English. Drs. Westcott and Hort were definitely
"wise as serpents," but unfortunately they were
equally as harmful.

Scholarly Deceit

Since the Committee had been instructed
not to deal with matters of the Greek text, and the
Westcott and Hort text had not been published, it was
necessary for the two Cambridge Catholics to submit it
little by little to the Committee. Even this was done in
secret.

In order to establish their own Greek
text as authorative, they first planned the strategy
prior to the first meeting of the Committee. Their old
friend Bishop Lightfoot was even there to help as
Westcott notes in a letter to Hort dated May 1870,
"Your note came with one from Ellicott this morning
... Though I think the Convocation is not competent to
initiate such a measure, yet I feel that as 'we three'
are together it would be wrong not to 'make the best of
it' as Lightfoot says ... There is some hope that
alternative readings might find a place in the
margin."184

The next month he wrote to Lightfoot
himself: "Ought we not to have a conference before
the first meeting for revision? There are many points on
which it is important that we should be agreed."185

They then secretly submitted their text
to the Committee members, and stayed close by their sides
to see to it that their scheme was carried out. This
fact, Dr. Wilkenson attests to:

"The new Greek Testament upon
which Westcott and Hort had been working for
twenty years was, portion by portion, secretly
committed into the hand of the Revision
Committee. Their Greek text was strongly radical
and revolutionary. The Revisors followed the
guidance of the two Cambridge editors, Westcott
and Hort, who were constantly at their elbow, and
whose radical Greek New Testament, deviating the
furthest possible from the Received Text, is to
all intents and purposes the Greek New Testament
followed by the Revision Committee. This Greek
text, in the main, follows the Vatican and
Sinaiticus Manuscripts."186

These actions reek of Jesuit
underhandedness. Although Westcott and Hort were men of
scholarship, they were not men of integrity.

Defending the Infidel

For the most part, Westcott and Hort
found a welcome audience to their abolition of the
Universal Text, for the spirit of the revision had been
set when the Christ-denying, Unitarian preacher, Dr.
Vance Smith, was seated on the Committee.

Dr. Hort shared his feelings concerning
Smith's appointment with co-conspirator Lightfoot.
"It is, I think, difficult to measure the weight of
acceptance won before the hand for the Revision by the
single fact of our welcoming an Unitarian."187

Westcott exposed his loyalty to apostasy
when he threatened to quit if the Convocation were
successful in ejecting Smith from the Committee.

"I never felt more clear as to
my duty. If the Company accepts the dictation of
Convocation, my work must end. I see no escape
from the conclusion."188

Wilkenson records Smith's comments
concerning Isaiah 7:14: "This change gives room to
doubt the virgin birth of Christ. The meaning of the
words of Isaiah may, therefore, be presented thus:
'Behold the young wife is with child."'189

Dr. Smith called the belief in Christ's
second coming an error. "This idea of the Second
Coming ought now to be passed by as a merely temporary
incident of early Christian belief. Like many another
error, it has answered its transitory purpose in the
providential plan, and may well, at length, be left to
rest in peace."190

Dr. Westcott felt that doctrine was
unimportant. He believed that he as a scholar should
decide the text, then theologians could add their remarks
afterwards. He stated, "I hardly feel with you on
the question of discussing anything doctrinally or on
doctrine. This seems to me to be wholly out of our
province. We have only to determine what is written and
how it can be rendered. Theologians may deal with the
text and version afterwards."191

What did Westcott think of Smith's
theological beliefs? "Perhaps we agree in spirit but
express ourselves differently. At least we agree in
hope."192

This last statement may very well hold
more truth than Westcott intended. It may help here to
point out that the Church of England defector to Rome,
Dr. Newman, was asked to be on the Committee, but he
refused.193 This should reveal the true spirit
which the revisors had in their attempt to "bring
the Bible up-to-date."

This is not the first revision Newman
was asked to sit in on. In 1847, two years after
defecting, Cardinal Wiseman, the militant Roman Catholic
priest, wrote him this from Rome: "The Superior of
the Franciscans, Father Benigno, in the Trastevere,
wishes us out of his own head to engage in an English
Authorized Translation of the Bible. He is a learned man
and on the Congregation of the Index. What he wished was,
that we would take the Protestant translation, correct it
by the Vulgate ... and get it sanctioned here."194
Strangely enough, the desire of Wiseman, to
"correct" the Authorized Version with Jerome's
corrupt Vulgate, is exactly what Protestant scholars did
in 1881, 1901, 1952, 1960, 1973, and in every
"new" and "improved" translation
since 1611.

Westcott and Hort were so successful at
their secret task of subtly guiding the decision of the
Revision Committee that many Committee members did not
suspect that they had been used by the Cambridge duo to
help destroy the authority of the Authorized Version and
give the world yet another Roman Catholic Bible. Philip
Mauro records:

"In view of all the facts it
seems clear that, not until after the Committee
had disbanded, and their work had come under the
scrutiny of able scholars and faithful men, were
they themselves aware that they had seemingly
given their official sanction to the substitution
of the "New Greek Text" of Westcott and
Hort for the Textus Receptus. The Westcott and
Hort text had not yet been published, and hence
had never been subject to scrutiny and criticism;
nor had the principles upon which it was
constructed been investigated. Only after it was
too late were the facts realized, even by the
Revisors themselves."195

It can be safely said that if Westcott
and Hort were not two Jesuit priests acting on secret
orders from the Vatican, that two Jesuit priests acting
under such orders could not have done a better job of
overthrowing the authority of God's true Bible and
establishing the pro-Roman Catholic text of Alexandria,
Egypt!

It is truly amazing in light of all the
evidence of their apostasy, that Westcott and Hort should
be so revered by modern scholarship. It is strange indeed
that men who believe in the premillenial return of Christ
would defend men who did not. That men who believe that
salvation is by grace through faith could uphold men who
not only did not believe in it, but sadly, did not
experience it. It is amazing that men who believe with
all their heart that the Bible is the Word of God could
be so blind to the infidelity to the Word of these two
men.

Revival in America is still possible,
but like Jacob told his household in Genesis 35:2,3:
Christian scholarship must "put away the strange
gods" and "go up to Bethel."